St. John & Seboomook RR

             Many know of or have visited the “Ghost Trains” in the north Maine woods. The Great Northern Paper Company also constructed other railroad facilities in its woodlands in the early days. A recent museum visitor sent us searching the collection for information on one that ran from Seboomook Lake north to St. John Pond, about eighteen miles. An old newspaper article gives the following information.

            This railroad was designed and constructed to move pulpwood from the waters of St. John Pond to the waters of the Penobscot River. From there it would be driven on woods streams to the mill in Millinocket. This would eliminate the need for the costly river drive through that area. J. T. Mullen had charge of the project which included 300 men working on the railbed and laying track.

            A preliminary survey was done in 1910 by a crew of surveyors who spotted a right-of-way. The project would cover 110 acres, the width of the roadbed would be 50 ft. and the line of the route more than 18 miles. It was 1919 before work began.

            The following winter, “the country which never before heard the ring of an axe and where the shriek of a locomotive whistle was answered by the shrill, weird cry of the loon, was cleared for the actual road construction and approximately 60,000 individual logs were cut for telephone poles and railroad ties.”

            By spring 1920, brush was burned and stumps removed over a 20-mile distance. Several bridges and culverts were constructed including the “trestle bridge” at Logan Brook. This railroad bridge was built entirely of timber and was 14 ft. high and 600 ft. in length. The train track ran through the center. Over 700 men had been employed during this stage of the railroad’s construction.

            Wet weather brought about a stoppage of work in late 1920. However, a crew worked building a sawmill at the terminal and several other buildings. The next spring, a line of track was laid along the “turnpike” road from the Seboomook wharf to Carry Pond. This would carry freight and equipment from the lake steamers and scows.

            At the same time, a scow was being constructed on the shore of the West Branch just below Pittston Farm for use in transporting rolling stock and other necessary equipment to the terminal at the head of the deadwater. That scow was 100 ft. in length, 25 ft. wide and had a carrying capacity of nearly 300 tons. Also constructed at the same time was a pier that extended around the existing storehouse. The pier would accommodate steamers and scows and the storehouse was remodeled and equipped with a conveyor to facilitate the work of unloading the barges and the loading of cars.

            This small railroad in the woods of Northern Maine would consist of about fifteen flat cars each with a carrying capacity of 8 to 10 cords of wood. Switch systems would be installed and semaphores set in place. The wood was hauled from the northernmost lumbering operation to the south terminal onto the pier extending out into the deadwater from which the wood will be dumped into the lake.

            The news article is from the Bangor Daily News. The same article was also found in the July, 1921 issue of The Northern, the magazine from GNP’s Spruce Wood Dept.